One in four Italian agricultural enterprises has already made or aims to make investments in digitization between 2022 and 2024. The just-released survey shows a sector that invests to reduce its environmental footprint driven by national and European regulations (in 47 percent of cases ), but is developing an autonomous awareness toward the climate emergency (22 percent).

Rising among young and female entrepreneurs is the share of college graduates (weighing 26 percent and 21 percent, respectively).

But the path to the 4.0 transition is not always without obstacles. Holding back the introduction of digital innovations are lack of resources (for 25 percent), too high costs of the technologies themselves (for 23 percent), lack of information about the investment process (for 21 percent) and lack of skills (for 15 percent).

More in detail, the scarcity of financial resources is an obstacle to investment in technology felt particularly by women's businesses (49 percent versus 25 percent of overall farms). Not to mention that more than 8 out of 10 enterprises (86 percent of agricultural enterprises) resort to self-financing to finance current operations and make investments. This is another reason why the European recovery plan could be an opportunity to be seized, but only 16% of agricultural enterprises have already taken action, and another 15% plan to do so.

Agricultural enterprises show a greater ability to network with other actors in the supply chain. While those that are making or will make green investments between 2022 and 2024 are predominantly businesses led by women (61 percent) and those under 35 (55 percent). In the majority, larger enterprises located in the North, while a lower spread of Green investments is seen in Forestry and Fisheries and enterprises operating in the South and Islands.

Although most enterprises (86 percent) say they have no particular difficulties in introducing Green investments in their business. On the contrary, 78 percent say that investing in sustainability is an opportunity for their business, compared to 63 percent of industrial enterprises and 55 percent of services.